Growing up around family businesses proved an ideal upbringing for WK client Huntley Fisher, who now has his own international business at just 21.
Huntley heads watch label Foxleigh Watches, providing more than 85 stores across Australia and New Zealand with stunning watches from right here in Blenheim.
“When I purchased Foxleigh all dispatch was done by third party logistics out of Hong Kong, but as most of our sales are within NZ and Australia it made sense to bring it back here,” he says.
“Since October 2017 we’ve gone from being stocked in zero stores to having over 50 stockists in New Zealand and 35 in Australia.”
Huntley began working in his family business, Elite Pavlova, also known as the Pav’n’Pie Shop, during school holidays, before taking on a variety of roles full time from working in the factory, to operations and then sales and marketing once he left school.
“While still at school I had the opportunity to be involved in several ‘businesses’ that I guess sparked the idea, from selling serviettes to railway sleepers,” Huntley says.
“I have always wanted to be my own boss and when the opportunity arose [in August] last year to purchase Foxleigh I scraped together my savings and took the plunge!”
With just under a year under his belt as the director of Foxleigh, Huntley has expanded the business immensely, just last month securing a stockist in El Salvador.
“It’s amazing to think we can do business with people on the other side of the world so easily … we’ve sold our watches to over 40 countries through our website,” he says.
Huntley has support from Lisa and Zoe at WK, who help him with the accounting side of his business, who he describes as ‘absolutely fantastic’.
“They were a great help in getting all the accounting set up correctly and automated with our website backend and also when setting up the Australian branch.
Going forward, Huntley hopes to expand his business further into Australia, Europe and the USA, where he says he’s already made a few inroads.
“I truly feel like we have just started so it’s funny to look back and see how much we’ve accomplished already in the past year,” he says.
“I purchased [the business] as we could see potential growth into other countries and also through the wholesale channel, which has proven correct thankfully!”
Huntley’s watches can be purchased from No.4 Boutique in Blenheim, as well as online at www.foxleighwatches.com.